"NORMAC is still the world’s only stand-alone Model Arctic Council for secondary schools.  This year’s conference was our eighth.  As in previous years, funding from the Friends of Norwich School enabled Norwich School pupils to benefit from this unique and innovative educational experience by serving as ‘officers’ of the ‘NORMAC 8 Secretariat’ and assisting the running of the event.

In all, 54 pupils from 6 schools took part in NORMAC 8. Thirteen were Norwich School pupils serving on the Secretariat, and 41 were pupils from other schools, who paid a conference fee to take part as ‘delegates’ playing the roles of diplomats representing Arctic States and Arctic Indigenous peoples.

I was pleased that two of the schools took part in NORMAC for the first time this year: City of Norwich School and Ipswich High School.  The accompanying teachers told me they were thrilled with the event, and that they intended to bring their schools to take part again next year.  It was also heartening to see that NORMAC 8 return to the usual size for NORMAC conferences.  Last year’s NORMAC 7 was smaller due to simultaneous staff changes at some of the visiting schools.

The pupils participating in NORMAC discussed two up-to-the-minute Arctic issues: the question of Marine Protected Areas in the Arctic, and the question of food security in Arctic communities. Three days of sometimes intense negotiations paid off with a unanimous political declaration on both issues. Our Norwich School pupils had a critical hand in that success, facilitating discussions, summarising agreement and disagreement, and helping the ‘diplomats’ to draft a mutually acceptable final text.

NORMAC participants were also treated to both a keynote address and on-the-ground mentoring from Drs Samantha and Simon Fox, founders of the national Youth STEMM Award (YSA) programme (a DofE-style award for supercurricular engagement with STEMM subjects). On a related note, I’m pleased to be able to report that I’ve established a formal partnership with YSA, allowing pupils can gain credit towards a Youth STEMM Award by taking part in NORMAC. Some Norwich School pupils have already taken advantage of this offer.

Our Norwich School pupils gained other important benefits from their NORMAC experience, too – through their preparations, through taking part, and through the educational ‘debriefing sessions’ that I personally lead each day to help them transform their experience into learning:

• Knowledge and awareness of the Arctic – arguably one of the most important places on our warming planet today – and of Arctic peoples and the challenges they face
• Hands-on experiential learning of negotiation and diplomacy – building valuable skills in dealing with disagreement and reaching consensus
• Leadership, logistical and event management skills as Secretariat officers.

Feedback from pupils and visiting teachers was extremely positive as in previous years.  Happy to share it as usual, but this year I’d like to highlight here instead some special feedback from the real world of Arctic diplomacy:

• A ‘like’ to one of our NORMAC Secretariat’s tweets from Morten Høglund, Arctic Ambassador for Norway and the Chair of the Senior Arctic Officials at the Arctic Council
• A generous endorsement of NORMAC from Petteri Vuorimäki, Arctic Ambassador for Finland (who has also commented very positively about Polar Aspect MACs before)  https://twitter.com/PVuorimaki/status/1763621995718017524
• A seal of approval for NORMAC from the Arctic Council itself 

This feedback came to us in real-time over social media during the conference, and the assembled pupils were thrilled to hear that their efforts were being recognised at the international level!

Thank you to Friends of Norwich School for their continued support!"

Written by Dr Anthony N Speca